Do you know where the term ‘cocktail’ came from?
I have been told, by a very reliable Cuban source, that it originated in a bar in Mexico. A bartender mixed a variety of juices with alcohol and garnished his master piece with the feather from a cock’s tail. The drink became popular and patrons started ordering the drink with the cocks tail, eventually the ordering process was shortened to ‘Can I have a cocktail?’.
While we are on the subject, I might as well tell you some more ‘drinks’ trivia. The same ‘well informed’ Cuban also told me that the Daiquiri was invented here in Cuba. In a small mining town of the same name. An adventurous entrepreneur invented a refreshing drink that ‘went down a storm’ with the dusky hard working miners. Their parched throats could not get enough of his mixture of lime juice, sugar and crushed ice. Especially when he topped it with good helping of rum.
But all of these lovely drinks should be enjoyed in the Caribbean sunshine, not on a rainy windy day. You can’t have the precious rum diluted by rain drops! And you thought all we had was sunny days and white beaches. The Bahamas and northern Caribbean are much more effected by weather fronts produced over North America then the Eastern Caribbean. Even Cuba’s protected south coast is effected by the frontal systems that descend down form the north. Thankfully their are an abundance of Cays that offer all round protection.
We spent a very windy rainy day anchored up in the well protected lagoon at Cayo Algodon Grande. Once inside the reef and sandbars, that protect the entrance, you find a nice size lagoon with a gently shelving perimeter. The best beaches are on the windward side, and I have already told you how to get to them in the last blog. But if the weather turns as foul as it has now, there are a few small beaches inside the lagoon that will do in a pinch to get ashore and stretch your legs. Although the humans have ruined all my fun. I have been put on a ‘long line’ lead as they are sick of me running off after Junta and Iguana. But I am getting lots more treats as they have themselves fooled that they can train me ignore them. We have also been joined by two French registered vessels seeking shelter.
It turns out the humans needed the day off of adventures, as they suddenly realized that one of their visas was running out. Canadian citizens get an automatic 3 month visitors visa, but all other nationalities only get one month, with the option of renewal. The immigration officials assured the humans that there would be little problems with renewing the visa, as one of them was Canadian, but they needed to do so at a Port of Entry into the country a few days before the month was up. Not as easy as it sounds as there are only 3 Ports of Entry on the south coast of Cuba. The closest to us would be Cienfuegos, on the mainland. We are still a couple hundred miles from there.
So the humans needed the day to get themselves organized. No more deciding each day what they wanted to do with little more than the weather as their guide. They needed to plan an efficient route through the maze of cays of the Golfo de Anne Maria to get to Cienfuegos in less than a week. Not the easiest thing sometimes as all the guide books are written backwards. I am not joking, it is very annoying and confusing, all the guides are organized as if you are sailing from West to East. Now we could just say ‘good bye Golfo de Anne Maria’ and make a long overnight trip straight there, but that is not what we came to Cuba for. We do not want to miss out on everything between here and Cienfuegos when we still have a few days left. And we do not really want to travel at night with all these fishing boats with no lights.
We had a rainy day to bake bread and sort out a nice gentle trip to Cienfuegos, so that is what we did. With only 6 days it meant we were going to miss out on some of the outer cays and going to have to start moving before the worst of these strong winds had blown out. We decided on a route that kept sailing to short days, gave us hopefully part of the day to go exploring and avoided cays without a beaches. Well all but one.
We decided to leave tomorrow, even though the winds were predicted to blow even harder, and make the first short jump West 16nm to Cayo Cuervo. It would be a beam sail and the lagoon there is supposed to be well protected with a beach.
Cayo Breton is next. It is the last outer Cay of the Jardines de la Reina and a jump of about 30nm. The winds are meant to still be brisk, but not as strong as tomorrow. None of the other Cays of the Jardines de la Reina offer as good a protection in strong winds, and we do not have enough time left to wait for them to ease. So we will have to visit this group of Cays next time we come back to Cuba. Unfortunately, this well protected anchorage is the only cay without a beach on this route. Darn!
From Cayo Breton we work our way back North West towards the mainland stopping along the way at small cays that line the Eastern side of the channel. A stop at the first cay with an anchorage, Cayo Zara de Fura, keeps the trips short and means we will be navigating the shallowest waters in the good late afternoon light.
From there we can break up the trip into very small hops to Cayo Manchos de Fuera and Cayo Blanco de Casilda or head straight into Cienfuegos if the weather looks like it will close before Friday.
All sounds like a good plan. But like all sailing plans it is fluid as you never know what will happen with the weather, break downs, or serendipity. But at least after today there is no more rain forecast. It just hate it when my rum cocktail gets water down at happy hour!
Wish us luck!
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Photos, charts and information we added once we got internet. Use link below:
Review of Southern Cuba Part 1- including the pictures you missed
